


Pick Up in Aisle 3

by Cup_aTea



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Grocery store mishaps, Kid Fic, M/M, Meet-Cute, Single Parent Clint, Single Parent Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 05:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11730540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cup_aTea/pseuds/Cup_aTea
Summary: Clint didn't mean to lose his daughter in the grocery store.  It was just meant to be a quick trip before they went home for dinner, but three year old Katie goes missing.Enter Phil, who is not a store manager, and his daughter Skye, who is probably the most competent one around, at least in her opinion.





	Pick Up in Aisle 3

**Author's Note:**

> The first part of this was inspired by my trip to the store this afternoon where I watched this happen to a dad (and I'm not kidding, he only had 6 pizzas and some ziplocs for realsies. It seemed like a very Clint moment). Major props to parents everywhere, I don't know how you do it.
> 
> I wrote this pretty quickly, so all mistakes are mine.

“Stay close, Katie-Kate,” Clint called out. 

“Yes, Daddy!” said Katie. She was winding in and out of the displays chattering to herself as they waited in the check out, but she was starting to get a little too far away.

Clint looked down at his basket and did a mental inventory of his list. Not that it took him long. Five frozen pizzas and a box of just-in-case wet wipes weren’t exactly hard to tally. He sighed as he looked up, wishing they were home already. Then he froze. Kate was nowhere to be seen.

 _Okay, don’t panic._ It’s not like he was new at this dad thing, even if sometimes it felt like it. Katie loved hide and seek. She probably thought this was a great place for a game. There was no reason to think she’d been snatched by someone or wandered out where she might be hit by a car. None at all. _Oh god._

“Kate?” he called out. He waited a moment, listening for a giggle or to see her peak around a corner, but there was no sign of her.

“Katie?” he said, the word coming out high and desperate. Still no answer. 

Clint surged forward, elbowing his way around other shoppers with muttered apologies. The basket banged painfully against his leg and he couldn’t care less.

“Katie? Kate?” he called out as he went.

He made it to the front of the store, but couldn’t spot her there either. He hurried over to a man in a suit who was surveying the checkout lanes with a frown.

“Help. Please,” he said. “I’ve lost my daughter. She’s three years old, about this tall, and she’s got dark brown hair in pigtails and a purple shirt.”

The man stared at him. “Of course I’ll help you look, but don’t you think you should report it to the staff?”

“But...I thought—aren’t you…?”

Clint was saved from his sputtering when an unfamiliar voice called out, “Hey, Dad! I found this kid all by herself. She said she got separated from her dad and she can’t find him.”

Clint turned to see an older teenage girl leading his daughter over to them.

“Katie!”

“Daddy!”

Katie got her hand free and bolted over to him. He swept her up in a hug and held her close to his chest. 

“Oh, Katie,” he muttered into her hair, blinking back a few unexpected tears. He breathed in the smell of her hair and her shampoo and reminded himself she was safe. After a few moments she started to squirm.

“Daddy, you’re holding me too tight,” she said.

“Sorry, kiddo,” he said, easing up. 

She leaned back. “That’s okay, Daddy. Down please,” she said, tugging on his shirt.

He set her down, and turned to the pair that had helped them out. 

“Thank you both,” he said. “And sorry for thinking you worked here. Your tie matches the store colors.”

“Told you,” said the teenager. Her dad rolled his eyes. Clint snuck a quick look, checking him out. In his neat suit and tie, he was basically Clint’s wet dream.

“No problem. I’m glad it all worked out. I’m Phil, by the way, and this is my daughter Skye,” the man said. 

“Skye found me, Daddy,” Katie piped up. “After you got lost.”

“That’s not quite the way I remember it,” Clint said, sharing a look with Phil. “But thank you, Skye. I’m Clint and this is Katie. I swear this has never happened before. I am usually a very capable parent.”

Phil smiled—and wow, Clint was a fan of those blue eyes when they crinkled around the corners—and quirked an eyebrow with a look down at Clint’s basket. 

Clint looked down and the five frozen pizzas looked sadly back up at him. He felt his ears flush.

“This looks bad,” he said. “But our fridge is full of vegetables, honest. These are for me while Katie’s with her mom next week.”

“Daddy doesn’t like vegetables,” Katie said helpfully. “But I eat them all the time and Mama says they’ll make me grow up taller than she is.”

Phil was smiling for real now. “Well, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” he said.

“Or,” Skye said, with a tone that only a teenager could muster, “you could go to his place and find out. You know, sometime while Katie’s at her mom’s.”

Clint watched as Phil flushed, and mmm-hmm, he bet that the man was a full body blusher. He was hung up on that thought for a minute before the implications of what Skye had said caught up with him.

“Skye,” Phil hissed. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“What?” Skye said. “He implied that he’s going to be home alone and he was totally checking you out earlier. Just ask him out.”

She huffed and walked away to look one of the displays at the end of a checkout lane. Phil’s face had gone bright red.

“And here I thought parents were supposed to embarrass their teenagers, not the other way around,” Phil said. “I, uh… I don’t know if you’re still involved with Katie’s mom. Or with anyone. Or, um…”

“No,” Clint said quickly. “I’m not. With anyone. Especially Kate’s mom. Family things can be complicated, but Bobbi and I are completely over. Donesies. Finito. Forever. Um…” Clint finally managed to stop talking, but Phil had cracked a smile, so he probably hadn’t messed things up too badly.

“Would you like to go on a date with me?” Phil asked.

Clint waved a hand at Phil’s suit. “I’d love to. But I’m not really the ‘take out to somewhere fancy’ kind of date. I’m more the ‘what you see is what you get’ type,” he said, gesturing down at himself.

Phil quirked that little smile that Clint was starting to really like. “Good thing I like what I see,” he said, smoother than Clint could ever dream of being. “Plus, I’m the type who comes home and watches Super Nanny and Dog Cops.”

“You like Dog Cops?” said Clint, breaking out in a smile.

“Love it,” said Phil. 

Clint swallowed. “You wanna watch next week’s episode with me? Like a date? At my place?”

“I’d love to,” Phil said. “But only so long as the pizza is delivered.”

“It’s a deal,” Clint said. “I mean, a date.”

“It’s a date,” Phil agreed.

“Finally,” they heard Skye mutter, but they were both to busy smiling and exchanging numbers to care.

“Until later?” Phil said, a hopeful tone in his voice.

Katie was tugging on sleeve and asking something about ice cream, but Clint was more focused on the feel of Phil’s fingers where they lingered over his own, not quite wanting to break the contact.

“Until later,” he said.

Phil smiled and finally turned away to head out of the store. Clint watched him the whole way and actually stumbled over his own feet when Phil glanced back to smile at him one more time. Clint made his way to the checkout, listening to Katie’s argument for ice cream and thinking he might just give in to her as a celebration of how everything had turned out.


End file.
